Wheel of the World
by JealousOfTheMoon
Summary: Sometimes, she feels the world turning beneath her, senses the infinity of the surrounding universe... It's just one of the many things she's accepted as incomprehensible. Donnacentric, PostS4-JE.


_Based on the Doctor's comment in 'Unicorn and the Wasp' on Ms. Christie's loss of memory; how memories kept "bleeding over" despite the fact that technically they had been lost. I kind of figured that was a small hint, maybe, into what happens to Donna—sure, she can't remember, but things definitely wouldn't have been the same. I think this might be slightly OOC—I mostly just threw in a bunch of stuff that tickled my fancy—and I'm definitely not from the UK, so I'm not up on the lingo or anything. Forgive my Yank-ish ignorance. _

_I'm not very familiar with Who fanfiction, but I'm sure many people have made very similar stories before. There's lots more that can be said, and I'm not saying this is all. This is just the stuff that struck me. (To put in a shameless plug for a friend, North Wyn has a Donnacentric drabble that's rather splendid—especially if you like ones that don't ramble on and on like mine and still get the job done.) _

_Written to the song of the same title by Carrie Underwood. I own neither that song nor the Doctor Who universe. _

**Wheel of the World** _–by JotM _

"That's brilliant!" she exclaims one day, and then gapes. Where is her beloved, ever-sarcastic 'wizard'? She tries to get the word out and fails. What? _What?!_ She felt like hitting the wall in frustration. _Brilliant_, she thinks, _this is just brilliant—_and then stops when she realizes that _she's using it again._ What kind of loony geek uses the word 'brilliant,' anyway? None of _her_ mates…

It's one of those little, inexplicable changes that she's been finding everywhere, ever since she blacked out and missed worlds and all that nonsense—one of those things, a shift so small and yet all the more conspicuous for its lack in size. She hates it and vows she won't use it again.

But then it slips out again. And again. And again. Once, she's working out a complicated error in a corporation's system—yes, she's still temping—and she's just finished tugging her hands through her ginger locks when it hits her. She can't help jumping to her feet and proclaiming "Yess! I'm _brilliant!"_ to all the world at the top of her lungs. She leaves the office half an hour later, still red-faced from the embarrassment of having the occupants of twenty-some cubicles stand up and simultaneously shoot dart-like glares her way.

While on the way to her next appointment, she walks past a shoe store and spots a pair of trainers on display in the front window. She thinks they would look brilliant with her business attire, and makes a mental note to go try them on later. She glances at her watch and quickens her pace. Almost late for her recreational mathematics class—she doesn't want to miss _that_. Professor Harry promised they'd be starting happy primes today. Fascinating stuff—downright fantastic.

The word _'fantastic'_ echoes jarringly around her mind, but she brushes it off as the car fumes in the _atmos_…atmosphere. _Atmos? Whatever. _Anyway, she's always found the notions of a happy prime fascinating—hasn't she? It's odd. She doesn't know…

"Did I bump my head before I blacked out?" she asks one day.

"No," Mum responds—too quickly, maybe? "Well—I don't know—Donna, why do you ask? Is your head hurting?" She says sharply.

"No." _Why should my head hurt? Well, I suppose if I bumped it…but she said I didn't… _"I was just…nothing. It's all good—multo bene—brilliant—" She sighs inwardly at that but decides she's given it up.

Another day, she tells Gramps that the perfect man is smart, skinny, and has terrible taste in hair and shoes. She thinks she sees him jolt at that, but he almost immediately asks her slyly—albeit somewhat uncomfortably—whether she's met anyone who _might_ meet that description. She knows that tone, and vehemently protests its implications. Of course she didn't mean perfect _that_ way! _That_ kind of perfection doesn't babble on and on like the perfect mate she's thinking of now—_that_ kind of perfection stutters and is adorable.

The words are out before she can comprehend them, and Gramps looks confused. Not nearly as confused as she is, but she's long since learned to ignore the confusion.

These are all the little things, and she never thinks to put them together—unless she's in the middle of one of the moments that she's come to expect from time to time. In those moments, the little things make sense, but she still can't comprehend them. It makes her want to scream.

When she's in one of the moments, she feels it—the world, spinning beneath her, mysterious and huge, yet tiny in the vast…vastness. The unknown that seems _so familiar_…and she feels insignificant and yet great in those moments when she has all the earth and its _centuries and centuries_ whirling beneath and about her.

She mentions it to the family once, but Mum looks close to tears and Gramps sharply changes the subject. Mum starts looking at her all all…_soft_-like, as if she couldn't decide whether to break down and cry or hug her daughter. Gramps goes out to his stars.

Donna never mentions it again.

Years pass. She finds her stuttering love and then he passes on before her. She's on her deathbed, she knows.

Then—_he's_ there, in all his messy-haired brilliancy. _Dunce_, the word comes back to her—she just _knows _he's a raging idiot—and she wants to laugh at him but she can't laugh period. She can't do much of anything anymore. (Not that she did much before.)

He bends over her, grinning at her like an absolute nut, and she remembers something—adrenaline and…running. A whole lot of running.

He knows. He knows the reason for all those little, stupid things she's been doing all her life, and for some reason—he won't let her know.

She feels like hitting him.

"You were—are—brilliant," he says suddenly, almost cooing rather than talking, and his eyes are definitely glistening.

She's _not_ brilliant.

He scoffs when she thinks that, and she jolts at the sound.

"Don't give me the whole Insecure Donna Noble bit. You're brilliant," he repeats firmly, and this time his voice is definitely tight. He's still cooing at her—like she's a baby—and this annoys and pleases her at the same time.

"Shut up," she mutters, and whacks him on the arm. For some reason, she's not surprised when the tension in him drains.

She chalks it up to one of those things she's forgotten—sort of the way she's forgotten whether to love or hate him—a reflex that's lasted even though the memory of it is long gone.

She hears the music—_again_, she thinks, though she doesn't know why she's hearing it for the second time—and somehow she doesn't think anyone else can hear it but she and maybe the idiot with her, so she closes her eyes and lets it break her heart. She may not know who he is; somehow, but she knows he knows who _she_ is, better perhaps than she herself knows, and that both frustrates and relieves her.

But then—she's lived most of her life this way. It doesn't really matter if she dies not knowing.

"Tell me." She croaks. He doesn't smile, doesn't say anything. He simply puts his fingers to her temples and closes his eyes.

A single word shoots across her mind: _TARDIS_, and with it a jarring flash of light. Her mind explodes momentarily with light, which is followed by infinite darkness.

Then—planets, galaxies, universes…adventure, adventure, adventure…._brilliant!_

She dies the next day.

_He looks at her. Somehow, he knows she's remembering, but she doesn't look as though she's 'burning up'—she looks as though she's finding the forever she'd always been looking for, even when she didn't know she was looking for it—that in these last moments, she's finally got it._

_And underneath him, he feels the turn of the world, giving him that feeling of simultaneous power and vulnerability. Perhaps—if he lets go—_

_He sighs and brushes the thought away. Looking at her serene, quirky face, he knows he can't. This is the last of Donna Noble's many ways of saving his life. Funny how it works, with the first time she did it being the time she told him to let go. Now, he simply doesn't feel like letting go anymore. _

_He's glad she knows.  
_


End file.
